Booze-fuelled Brit

A British tourist on a booze-fuelled crime spree early yesterday faces five charges after being collared by police.

The 23-year-old man, who’d been staying at a local backpackers, was walking along Frankton Road when he allegedly picked up a road cone and smashed the window of a parked car, senior constable Sean Drader says.
It didn’t end there: “When he got to the Garden Court Motel he found a fire extinguisher and set it off. Then he smashed the window of a parked rental car, tried to smash another car window, went to the door of an occupied room, smashed down the door with a fire extinguisher, climbed inside, stole three knives and then attempted to break into a parked car with the knives,” Drader alleges.

“It’s strange behaviour.”

The man has been charged with unlawfully interfering with a motor vehicle, burglary, two charges of wilful damage and one charge of disorderly behaviour.

Angry man kicks cop

A local kitchen-hand has been charged after allegedly kicking a police officer last Friday.

The man, 20, had been arguing with bouncers outside Altitude bar when police came along.

“He was abusive to them, then he walked into Revolver where he was also abusive, they asked him to leave, he ended up getting himself arrested,” Drader says.

“While he was being taken back to the police station he kicked the sergeant.”

Drink-driving

Police have been busy dealing with locals and tourists who drink-drive.

Last Saturday, a 52-year-old Queenstown marketing manager was caught driving with 545 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath on Man Street at 1.15am. At the same time in nearby Camp St, a 23-year-old Australian man blew 903mcg.

Last Friday night a 48-year-old Christchurch man blew 491mcg and a 27-year-old housekeeper from the Czech Republic blew 955 mcg on Hensman Rd at 11.30pm.

On Friday at 2.25am an 18-year-old local man blew 474mcg when he was stopped on Stanley St. The legal limit for adults is 400mcg and zero for under-20s.

“There’s a lot of drink-driving, and you think about the conditions out there – how poor a choice that is,” Drader says.

“People just keep on doing it, it’s stupid. A lot of them don’t even live very far away.”

Poor choice of words

A 26-year-old local chef was arrested outside his Camp St house following a mid-afternoon verbal tirade at cops last Saturday.

“He was obscene, obnoxious, and he was aggressive,” Drader says.

“It was pretty uncalled for.”

Boozed on bail

A 19-year-old Queenstown man has had another run-in with the cops after breaking the law while on bail for other charges.

The man – ordered not to drink while on bail – was found drunk by police after he broke into an apartment on Lake Esplanade last Wednesday.

“He jumped up on top of a van and climbed onto a balcony of lakefront apartments. The people who were in the apartment found him, escorted him downstairs and he was arrested for being unlawfully in a building and disorderly behaviour,” Drader says.